Weapons at Schools
Freedom of Information (FOI) Act request ref: 01/FOI/25/008696/P
Version Date: 13/11/2025
The Performance & Analysis Department has provided the following information:
Data Limitations
Academic year is assumed to be September to August, but this may vary.
The following Data fields were read to try to identify whether the Suspect or Offender was a pupil/student: Person Occupation at Time, MO Data, Summary (Restricted), MO (Restricted). If not explicitly stated, I have marked these as "Unknown". Person Occupation at Time is poorly populated in this dataset.
MO Location has been filtered to show ‘education’ only and data has been reviewed to determine whether location was a primary or secondary school.
The following Data fields were read to try to identify Weapons Involved: MO Data, Summary (Restricted), MO (Restricted).
Under the Freedom of Information Act, please provide the following information broken down by the school academic years 2022-2023, 2023-2024 and 2024-2025.
1 - The number of pupils aged 18 and under recorded as being in possession of an offensive weapon on a school premises (primary and secondary schools only) during the academic years outlined above.
Sep 22-Aug 23 |
Sep 23-Aug 24 |
Sep 24-Jul 25 |
|
Number of unique Suspects/Offenders 18 or under, by Academic Year (assumed September to August) |
22 |
30 |
21 |
Please note there may be more than one suspect per occurrence.
2 – Please provide a breakdown of the number of offences which took place in a primary school setting and the number of offences which took place in a secondary school setting
Education Setting |
Count |
Primary |
7 |
Secondary |
17 |
Other |
17 |
Please note that location data has been reviewed, however if the ‘education’ marker was not selected then the data has not been reviewed so these numbers may not accurately reflect the actual ratios.
2- A list of the type of weapons involved - i.e – knife, machete, knuckle duster, firearm, hammer etc
Weapon |
Count |
10-11 cm folding knife |
1 |
2 Japanese style Zombie Knives |
1 |
2 Knives |
1 |
23CM SERRATED KITCHEN KNIFE AND STANLEY KNIFE |
1 |
3 INCH BLADED LOCK KNIFE |
1 |
3 Knives |
1 |
3 Razor Blades |
1 |
3.5" POCKET KNIFE (WHITTLING KNIFE) |
1 |
Blade |
1 |
Blade Article (Knife) |
1 |
BLADE WITH A HAMMER AND SAW ATTACHED |
1 |
Bladed Article |
3 |
BLADED OR SHARPLY POINTED ARTICLE |
1 |
Bread Knife |
1 |
Broken Bottle |
1 |
Butter Knife |
1 |
Carving knife |
1 |
Fake knife |
4 |
Folding penknife |
1 |
Kitchen Knife |
2 |
Knife |
19 |
Knife (approx. 9 inches long) |
1 |
Knife (folding blade about 2 inches long) |
1 |
Large Chen Knife |
1 |
Large Kitchen Knife |
2 |
Large pair of scissors |
1 |
Large Stanley Knife |
1 |
Lockable Craft Knife |
2 |
Metal Bar or Wooden Table Leg |
1 |
Offensive Weapon/Bladed Article/Knife |
1 |
Pen Knife |
1 |
Pumpkin Carving Knife |
1 |
Razor Blade |
1 |
Scissors |
1 |
Screwdriver, bottle opener and fork |
1 |
Shards of Broken Glass |
4 |
Small Kitchen Knife |
1 |
Small Metal Knife |
1 |
Stanley Blade and Kitchen Knife |
1 |
Stanley Knife |
1 |
Steak Knife |
1 |
Torch Light Taser device |
1 |
Unknown |
5 |
Please note, weapon detail has been taken from the occurrence summary which is completed by the attending officer.
3 – A breakdown of the ages of pupils involved provided in the following two age categories:
Age 4-11
Age 12-18
Age Group of Suspect/Offender for all Occurrences |
Sep 22-Aug 23 |
Sep 23-Aug 24 |
Sep 24-Jul 25 |
4-11 (Pupil/student confirmed) |
4 |
7 |
3 |
12-18 (Pupil/student confirmed) |
9 |
16 |
8 |
4-11 (Unknown if pupil/student) |
2 |
4 |
3 |
12-18 (Unknown if pupil/student) |
7 |
8 |
7 |
4 – The age of the youngest pupil recorded as being in possession of an offensive weapon on school premises (primary and secondary schools only) for the academic years outlined above (this does not need to be broken down by academic year) and the type of weapon involved.
For Suspect/Offenders confirmed as pupils/students, the youngest were 7 years old.
There were 2 of these: the weapon involved was described as a "Folding penknife" and "Pumpkin carving knife" respectively.